Keith Richards: Under the Influence is full of anecdotes

The docu has a provocative title. And if you’re familiar with the facts (and the fiction) surrounding the Rolling Stones’ 71-year-old guitarist you may think that it may be referring to substances (ingestible in different ways) that are often mentioned in association with Richards. It is not.

Sympathy for the devil: Keith Richards: Under the Influence takes us to the other side of the Rolling Stones’ guitarist – beyond the image of a joint smoking, bourbon quaffing outlaw to a man for whom music is everything.(Getty Images)

I was planning to write on something very different for the column this time – a new album by a relatively new and young bluesman, Gary Clark, Jr; the recording of a recent gig by Phish, which I’d downloaded and how it sounded when heard through a digital-analog converter (a new acquisition!); and about a rediscovery of Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention’s weird and experimental Weasels Ripped My Flesh from 1970. Then, last Sunday, Keith Richards happened and all of those plans were tossed.